On the Source of U-Shape Learning in Interlanguage Processing: A Pilot Study on the L2 Acquisition of Number Agreement in French by Jordanian Arabic Learners

Abstract

This paper investigates the L2 acquisition of the morphosyntax of number agreement of French by L1 learners. The study is based on a pilot study that investigates learners’ knowledge of number agreement of two paradigms of subject-verb number agreement in French: the so-called matching paradigm in which agreement in number is expressed audibly via an alternation of the verb stem between a singular and plural forms and the mismatching paradigm in which the number agreement is not audible realized via singular vs. plural alternation. We discussed our sample’s proficiency in (de-)normalizing number agreement and the implications it has for the theory of corrective feedback and linguistic input in L2 processing in Language acquisition.